No, you were really clear. She sounds like a treasure, in her own way.
When you're considering diagnosis, ask them for their opinion on Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). It is a possibility, from your description. And don't be scarfed by the label - it can actually be positive.
She is who she is. You already know things aren't easy for her. Or for you. A label isn't going to suddenly change who she is in any way, all it can do is give you perhaps a better insight into WHY she is like she is, and what sort of help you can give her. In the meantime, it's likely that what you are already doing, based on your knowledge of her, is in the right direction. Often a diagnosis can validate you as well as give you more leverage to get support funding.
Do get "The Explosive Child", even if she isn't all that explosive, except when you try to make her throw away anything gooey. And whenever you're dealing with her, try to get into her head, think how she is thinking, so you can find ways to handle her which will give you the result you want with as little distress as possible.
A lot of these kids dislike being controlled by other people; the world seems such a confusing, difficult place already, they like to feel they can control or predict what is going to happen to them. I found that giving them control, where it really is no skin off my nose, works best. They learn for themselves and learn self-control, hopefully. For example, if you have an impulsive kid rushing outside while it's snowing, you can provoke a rage by calling to them, "Come back and put your coat on!"
But if you can say, "Which coat do you want? Your red one or the blue one?" you are still giving choice. Of if tat is not an option, you can let the child go out into the snow because it's highly likely SHE will discover pretty fast that it's too cold and she wants something to get warm. If you had made it a big issue, purgatory would have to freeze over before she would admit to feeling cold. But if you didn't make a fuss, then she isn't going to lose face by coming back for her coat.
By saying you don't want to fix your children - you seem to think like I do. I was talking to difficult child 3 this morning about his piano lesson. His music teacher asked him to learn to play a new piano piece, but he doesn't know how it sounds. His usual trick is to transpose the manuscript onto computer (using a music program we have) and then play it back - the computer plays the piece aloud as the cursor scans across the manuscript. difficult child 3 gets to listen to it AND see where in the manuscript it makes a certain sound.
He then went to the piano to play it for himself.
He had done this yesterday, but this morning the computer was still asleep, so difficult child 3 went straight to the piano to play, and had trouble with the piece. We simplified it a bit - not enough. He was beginning to say that maybe the piece is too hard for him, then he started up the computer and played the file again. He then went back to the piano - he did really well.
So I was talking to him and saying, "You know, I think you just need to experience it all, spread out for you - the look of the manuscript, the sound of the music - and then play it while fresh in your head, so your hands can get the feel of it too. It's part of your autism to need to learn that way. Some people who are not autistic might have brains that learn this way too, but yours works REALLY, REALLY WELL when you give it what it wants."
difficult child 3 has a few friends, most of whom are smart and almost all of whom are much younger. One very bright little girl - difficult child 3 asked, "Is she autistic?" and when I asked why, he said, "Because she's so smart, I thought she must be."
Her understanding of autism is similarly distorted - she has trouble understanding that autism isn't merely extreme intelligence. She didn't understand, until the day she witnessed a meltdown and heard him swear. She was shocked. But as she is getting older, she is realising that in some areas, she is now outstripping him because she is able to think in more abstract terms than he can. Although he is making progress there, too. He wrote some poetry for his English teacher this year which she is putting in the school magazine.
Our kids can be a real handful. They can take up an enormous amount of energy and effort. But if you don't see them as limited, you are giving them the best chance to be who they can be. I let difficult child 3 learn whatever he wants to, regardless of the level. As a result, he's learning senior organic chemistry. When we were visiting his young friend (the one I just mentioned), she wanted to know about the recall on her Bindeez toy (you have a different name for it in the US) - the one which has been manufactured with the wrong chemical, which now can turn into a nasty drug in the body. husband sat with her and explained about the chemistry involved - a 9 year old girl getting a lesson in organic chemistry. And she understood it. She's never done it before, but she wanted to know it so she could understand something important to her, so we gave it to her. She may forget it all again, but when she eventually studies it at school, it will be a little bit easier for her.
A friend of mine, my age, is uneducated. She is physically handicapped and when she was a child at school, they thought she was "retarded" and so never bothered to teach her anything. She left school before her teens. Then, when she was older and had raised her children (she had been told to never have children!) she decided to write a book. She couldn't spell, she had no idea of punctuation, she would hit the return key or put in a full stop when she figured she had been writing for half a page or so.
I had to help her with editing, but she has published a book and is working on another. In the process she has learnt how to use a computer; she has learnt how to use the internet, she has been completely self-taught in all this.
Most people would consider her almost ga-ga, ready for a nursing home. However, she has accomplished far more than many people, despite being far more unlikely, to most people's minds.
Never underestimate people in general, and your children in particular.
Marg
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